Spine-Chilling Details About Meghan Markle's Royal Experience
Marrying into a royal family, especially the British royal family, ensures you get all sorts of privileges. Be it wealth, security, or fame, living life as a royal has unlimited perks. However, marrying into the British royal family turned out to be detrimental for former actor Meghan Markle, who became a royal — Duchess of Sussex, to be precise — following her and Prince Harry's May 2018 wedding.
Meghan has been subjected to intense scrutiny since the first reports about her dating the prince emerged. As her relationship started growing stronger, so did the attention she received from the press and people on the internet. Soon enough, that attention turned into invasion of privacy, trolling, and even harassment. Over the years, Meghan has suffered due to her royal status, and some of the details of her royal experience are unnerving, to say the least. Read on to learn about the most spine-chilling circumstances Meghan has been forced to face as a royal.
She was harassed by the media over her relationship even before she became a royal
Since the very beginning, Meghan Markle's royal experience has been so bitter that even the official announcement confirming her relationship with Prince Harry was made in the hopes that it would slow media and paparazzi harassment. The November 2016 statement read, in part,"The past week has seen a line crossed. [Prince Harry's] girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment."
The "wave of abuse" was nothing short of unnerving. One instance indirectly highlighted by the statement was a November 2016 story by The Sun, a British tabloid, entitled "Harry girl's on Pornhub." The "dirt" covered by the demeaning story was nothing but the fact that videos of Meghan's intimate scenes from the TV show "Suits" were shared on the adult website. The web version of the story was removed from the outlet's website shortly after, but the harm it already caused was simply irrevocable.
Many other outlets crossed boundaries with their racist, sexist comments. An article published by The Mail on Sunday went as far as to say that if the couple have children, "the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA." Needless to say, the plea from the prince changed practically nothing, and the media's aggression only got worse.
Her father used her royal status for paparazzi fame and money
In May 2018, a week before Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, The Mail on Sunday published CCTV footage of Meghan's father, Thomas Markle, entering a cyber cafe with a photographer before posing for fake paparazzi shots. The photos taken at the cafe, and others shot by the same photographer, could have been sold for up to $126,914, according to the outlet.
During Meghan and Harry's CBS interview with Oprah, Meghan explained how she confronted Thomas about the allegations at the time. "I said [to my father], [...] 'If you tell me the truth, we can help,' and he wasn't able to do that, and that for me has really resonated," she noted. Meghan reportedly never spoke to Thomas afterward, and the royal wedding took place without him walking her down the aisle.
In 2021, Thomas told Good Morning Britain that he did the photoshoot because he was offered no protection by the royals when he was photographed buying cigarettes and alcohol and portrayed as a heavy drinker. "[The press] were making me an alcoholic, calling me names, talking about the way I dress. So, I [...] went for this deal where this [photographer] was going to make me look better," he said (via People). At the end of the interview, Thomas noted in a public message to the royal couple, "I'm sorry for what I've done. [...] This was a long time ago, and I've certainly tried to make up for it."
She started having suicidal ideations during her first pregnancy
During the 2021 tell-all CBS interview, Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey that she had suicidal thoughts when she was pregnant with Archie, and it was caused in part by the negative attention from the British media. "I would sit up at night, and I was just, like, I don't understand how all of this [negative press attention] is being churned out," she said. "I realized that it was all happening just because I was breathing. [...] I just didn't want to be alive anymore." When Meghan decided to seek help, she was told it wasn't an option, as that wouldn't have been "good for the [royal] institution" (via US Magazine).
Things didn't go very well when she opened up to Prince Harry, either. In fact, to date, Harry feels guilty about how he reacted when Meghan confessed her feelings before leaving for a January 2019 charity event the couple was invited to. Harry, who decided to attend the event despite his wife's admission, noted in the fourth episode of Netflix's "Harry & Meghan," "I dealt with it as institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry. What took over my feelings was my royal role. Looking back at it now, I hate myself for it" (via Vanity Fair). That said, Harry has undoubtedly been supportive of Meghan ever since.
She was targeted by a coordinated social media hate campaign
Trolls on social media were never easy on Meghan Markle, but things got out of hand when some launched a coordinated campaign against her on X, formerly known as Twitter, during her first pregnancy. Shortly after Meghan and Harry left the royal family, more hate tweets flooded the internet. The tweets ranged from racist and sexist comments to allegations that Meghan was never pregnant, with one tweet wishing Meghan was dead and many threatening Meghan and her family.
A 2021 report released by Bot Sentinel, a company that tracks activity on X, detailed some shocking facts about the series of hate tweets posted against Meghan and her husband. Bot Sentinel investigated a total of around 114,000 tweets shared since early 2020 and discovered that 70% of them came from 83 accounts. Out of those 83 accounts, 55 posted original content, while 28 retweeted them. The ones running these accounts are said to be able to trick X's algorithm, which is supposed to identify hateful posts that go against the platform's guidelines.
In a second report, Bot Sentinel found that several journalists and royal commentators were in touch with said X accounts. The conspiracy theories shared on X eventually made their way to YouTube channels that were created solely to post hateful content against Meghan. Three such channels have even earned a whopping $494,730, according to Bot Sentinel. Clearly, for Meghan, hatred sold more than love.
She was faced with Royal family members questioning Archie's skin color before he was born
In the CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle revealed that during her first pregnancy, she and Harry had to deal with "concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie's] skin might be when he's born" coming from royal family members. The couple never named the people in question, but Oprah later revealed to CBS This Morning that it was neither Queen Elizabeth II nor Prince Philip (via The Cut). Shortly after the interview aired, the late queen issued a statement, noting, "The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately" (per USA Today).
In late 2023, the Dutch version of "Endgame" (a book on the royal family), claimed that said people were King Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales. Omid Scobie, the author of the English book, claimed that he knew who those individuals were but chose not to include their names in his draft (per BBC). The Dutch translation was withdrawn from the market shortly after, with a corrected version promised for release. As of the time of writing, the identities of the royals who made the racist comment remain a mystery.
Her 2020 miscarriage was allegedly caused by stress she suffered due to the press being insensitive
Meghan Markle first opened up about losing her second pregnancy in an essay she wrote for The New York Times in November 2020. Two years later, in December 2022, Prince Harry alleged that Associated Newspapers—the publisher of the websites Daily Mail, MailOnline, and The Mail on Sunday—was to blame for Meghan's miscarriage.
In July 2020, when the miscarriage took place, the former actor was dealing with a lawsuit she filed against Associated Newspapers. Meghan had sued the company for invading her privacy by publishing a letter she sent her father shortly before she tied the knot with Harry.
In the sixth episode of "Harry & Meghan," which aired on December 15, 2022, Harry claimed, "Bearing in mind the stress [the lawsuit] caused, the lack of sleep, and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say, from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what [the Mail] were trying to do to her" (via Vanity Fair). Meghan did go on to win the lawsuit, but the damage it had allegedly dealt was irreversible, to say the least.
She was involved in a life-threatening paparazzi car chase in New York
In May 2023, returning from the Women of Vision Awards that took place at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, were chased by a number of paparazzi who came in four and two-wheelers. The vehicles pursued Meghan's car for nearly two hours just to find where the couple and Meghan's mother were lodged during their stay in the city.
As Harry and Meghan's spokesperson noted in a statement the next day, "Last night, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Ms. Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi. This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians, and two NYPD officers."
However, what the couple's statement highlighted as "near catastrophic" was described by the New York Police Department (NYPD) as something "that made their transport challenging." A statement from the NYPD reported, "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination, and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard" (via CNN). That said, the couple and Doria were ultimately provided with police protection to get away from the paparazzi. Catastrophic or challenging, being chased by aggressive paparazzi must have been traumatizing for the couple, given that it's something that caused Harry's mother, Princess Diana, to lose her life.